What are you like as a friend? How do other people experience you? If I called the people you spend the most time with and said, “Describe so and so to me,” what would they say?
I would get nervous if someone asked me that question, because I think I know deep down how easy it is for me to delude myself. I think to myself, “I’m so this and that. It must just be a thrill to get to know me!” But more mature experience has taught me, I’m not the GOAT. I spend a lot of time wondering — I think we all do — what kind of friend am I really and what kind of friend do I want to be?
In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul reminds his friends in northern Greece how they first met. He’s telling them what kind of friend he had endeavored to be in the early days of their relationship. In verses 1-12, he says stuff like:
-he was a truth-teller
-he wasn’t a people pleaser
-he wasn’t fake
-he had a really genuine love for them
-he even got a job while he was in town so that no one else had to pay for his living expenses
In describing himself, Paul gives us a practical model for how to be a true friend, a true brother. The question is simple: is this the kind of stuff that people would say about YOU if we asked them? Is this the kind of Greenie brother you are?
I think we all hope that the answer to that question would be “yes,” and maybe it is. But I can tell you the secret to it all — the secret for how to be the kind of friend St. Paul was to the Thessalonians. Just tune in tomorrow…
Until then, H